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World Cleanup Day 2018: Millions of people in 150 countries will get to work

On 15 September 2018, volunteers worldwide will come together to rid our planet of trash – cleaning up litter and mismanaged waste from beaches, rivers, forests, and streets. World Cleanup Day 2018 is observed in 150 countries and the Day is part of the worldwide initiative Let’s Do It! World.

The main message of the movement is that everyone can make a change. If one person decides to only clean up one street and his friends follow him, the world is already a cleaner place. Five percent of the world's population is getting involved. The message of World Cleanup Day, supported by UN Environment, is simple but nonetheless important: to make our world cleaner and healthier and therefore more livable.

But World Cleanup Day is not only about cleaning up the world for one day. As the leader of the movement Let’s Do It! World, Eva Truuverk, puts it: „World Cleanup Day must become a wakeup call for the whole world”. In the long run the organizers want to raise awareness of this global issue and try to initiate lasting change.

The movement was launched ten years ago in Estonia, when 4 percent of the population decided to clean up the country. Those volunteers became role models for people all over the world. It was also the beginning of the global initiative Let’s Do It! World. Its aim is not only to clean up the world but also to stop global wasting and find long-term solutions to this problem.

The first World Cleanup Day in 2012 and various national cleanup events were already a great success. Now the organizers have high hopes that this year's initiative will have an even greater impact.

And there remains a lot to be done, both on land and at sea. Every year, eight million tons of plastic end up in the oceans. Earlier this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres underlined that the world must unite to “beat plastic pollution”, noting that microplastic particles in the ocean, “now outnumber stars in our galaxy”.

When the Security Council approaches the final stage of negotiation of a draft resolution the text is printed in blue... What's in Blue helps interested UN readers keep up with what might soon be "in blue".

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